ARMENIAN REFUGEES.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 34, 3 May 1927, Page 13

ARMENIAN REFUGEES.

MISS KAREN JEPPE’S WORK. It was in 1922, that Miss Karen Jeppe, a Danish missionary, was appointed to lead the work of the League of Nations Commission for rescuing Armenian women and children held captive in Moslem homes and Jiarems. No novel is more thrilling than the stories of the 1100 people rescued by this brave and resourceful woman, through her agents, the captives being brought in singly or in twos and threes as opportunity offered. The work has been carried on, not in Turkish territory, hut at stations in Northern Syria (under French mandate), from which the rescued have been taken to the main reception house, Aleppo, where they are trained for self-support. This organisation had a small grant from the League of Nations, not sufficient to maintain all the stations founded by Miss Jeppe, but appeals to Armenian relief societies, notably the appeal of the Bishop of London, made up the deficiency. With more funds, more rescues coul<l yet be effected. The horrors of negro slavery pale before the sufferings ot the women of a sister race to ours, in the hands of Turks, Kurds, and Arabs. The Aleppo Home has been a haven of hope to the scattered captives reached by Miss Jeppe’s secret messengers. The League of Nations will not continue its grant after this vear. The difficulty of tracing these victims of the infamous Armenian deportations of 1915 increases with time. Those who would help must act quickly. The secretary of the Armenian (Lord Mayor’s) Fund, 96 Victoria Street, London, receives donations for Miss Jeppe. A treat response is needed if many of the 50,000 still believed to he enslaved by Moslems, are ever to be found.

An ancient marriage custom of Leicestershire (England) was known “riding for the bridecake.” Mounted competitors would race towards a pole with, a wedding cake on top. The man who first knocked the trophy down with his stick would “take the cake’* and with it turn to meet the bride. Hence our expression “to take the cake.”